Method of and means for locomotive transportation of coal cars in mines



; J. T".v JOY. METHOD OF AND MEANS FOR LUCOMOTTVE TRANSPORTATION 0F COAL CARS IN MINES APPLICAT|0N FILED NAB. 29:15:19

1,429,145; 2 PatentedSept. 12,1922.

4 SHEETS-SHEET l- 61am Md J. F. JOY.

METHOD OF AND MEANS FOR LOCOMOTIVE TRANSPORTATION 0F COAL CARS IN MINES APPLICATlON FILED MAR 20,1919

2 2 97 1T rr 2% 114 :8 Wm 6E SW M m w a D1 J. F. JOY. METHOD OF AND MEANS FOR LOCOMOTIVE TRANSPORTATION 0F COAL CARS IN MINES.

APPLICATlON FILED MAR-'20. l9l9 Patented Sept. 12, 1922.

4 SHEETS-SHEET 3- Elmwuboz rlagnkf! Jqy J. F. JOY. METHOD OF AND MEANS FOR LOCOMOTIVE TRANSPORTATION 0F COAL CARS IN MINES.

APPLTCATION FILED MAR: 20. I919 Patented Sept. 12,1922.

OSHEETS-SHEET 4.

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mm 1*. JOY, or NEW BETHLEHEM, rnnnsvrvam ASSIGNOR 'ro JOY MACHINE comrnny, or rrrrsnuaen, PENNSYLVANIA, A conromrron or DELAWARE.

METHOD or armies FOR LocoMo'rIvE 'rnnnsroararron or GOAL 1:: m

- MINES.

Application filed. March 20, 1919. Serial No. 283,822.

such as will permit the operation of the present avallable mlne locomotives thereon, 65

' To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JosnPH F. (for, a

citizen of the United States of America, residing at New Bethlehem, in the county of 5 Clarion and State of Pennsylvania, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Methods of and Means for Locomotive. Transportation of Coal Cars in Mines, of

which the following is a' specification.

This invention relates to a certain new and useful method of and means for locomotive transportation of coal cars in mines, and has particular reference to the delivering of empty cars to be loaded from entry switches of a mine to a point near the working face of mine rooms and the-returning of the loaded cars to the switches where they may be collected by gatheringlocomotives and then towed out of the mine in.

trains by main haulage locomotives.

An adequate method and means of this kindcapable of successful and advantageous use in room-and-pillar mines has long been and is at present a practical necessity, and this is especially true with respect to thin or low-vein mines.

In order that this invention and its use may be fully understood, I will briefly describe the usual method of transporting coal as practiced in an up-to-date room-and-pillar mine in the bituminous coal regions of Pennsylvania. The coal, after being broken down from the working face in a room, is mechanically loaded from the mine floor by a machine into a pit car suitably placed at the rear or discharge end of said machine. When this car is filled, the same is run on crudely and temporarily laid rails out of the room into the entry and another empty car is then rolled into the room to be loaded. As the track or rails in the entry are usually laid so as to withstand the operation of the usual extremely heavy electric mine locomotives thereon up to a point near the rooms in which the loading is carried on, the filled cars are then coupled in trains to the locomotives and hauled or towed out of the mine. As the operating conditions met with in coal production do not permit such expenditure of time, material and labor as is necessary to the laying and maintenance of mine rooms in which the loading is done,

it is usual to transport the filled cars from the rooms by manual or animal haulage to the locomotives. Due 'to restricted space, especially in low vein mines, necessarily crudely .and temporarily laid tracks, and

various other conditions, motor haulage of the filled cars out of the rooms to the entry has not heretofore been. successfully practiced. This is true because the present available mine locomotives have to be and are made so bulky and hea to obtain proper and necessary tractive e ort that operatlon of the same, in the small crowded rooms and upon the crudely and temporarily laid rails thereof, is prohibitive and impractical.

Underground haulage of coal cars is at present carried on by the use of main hauli age locomotives weighing from ten to fifteen tons each and depending entirely on getting their energy from an overhead trolley wire, gathering locomotives weighing from four to six tons, and horses or mules.

The gathering locomotives in use are of three different types, the most common being the mechanically driven cable and reel type designed to run both in the entry and rooms and receiving its driving energy from an. entry conductor or trolley wire through a cable associated with an automatic selfwinding reel.- a

The next important type of gathering locomotive is that using a crab reel or winch. This locomotive stays in the entry and has a steel cable which is manually drawn into the room to be attached to the car and which is attached to the reel so that when the latter is set in motion, the car is drawn or pulled out of the room. Although this locomotive will permit the use of light tracks in the rooms, the same has the disadvantage of providing no means for delivering the empty cars to apoint near the working face from the entry which becomes desirable where the working places are being driven to the use The other type of gathering locomotive is the one which employs an electric storage battery for supplying its driving energy and which, like the other two .types, is made extremely necessary traction.

large and heavy for obtaining the The present function of these gathering locomotives is to collect the loade cars from the working faces and deliver them out from which they are transported in trains to the outside by heavier main haulagelocomotives.

The use of these gathering locomotives, owing to their size and weight, requires, a substantial track and more clearance overmaintain in the rooms under the natural conditions that are found in mines that are being developed at this time. This is especially true in connection with the working of some of the thinner veins made necessary by the exhaustion of the thicker ones.- In mining the thinner veins, it is necessary to either remove some of the strata immediately above or below the coal vein in the rooms in order to make head room for mules or some type of gathering locomotive, or to manually deliver the cars to and from the face, for which the miner requires an extra compensation. The present invention is designed with a view to overcoming the expense of providing this extra'head room or to render unnecessary the paying to the miner thisextra compensation. This object is accomplished by providing a small and compact room locomotive capable of operation in the same clearance space as that required by the coal or pit .cars which it is required to transport, the locomotive being lighter than the load which it is ex ected to haul and being therefore capable o practical use on any track that would be suitable to run the loaded cars on.

One of the principal reasons why it is impractical to run prior gathering locomotives in the rooms of any mine isthat the men who load the coal are not capable of laying a track suitable for carrying these gathering locomotives which are necessarily made large and heavy because they depend en-' tirely upon their own weight to give the tractive effort needed to pull the loaded cars.

As the use of my invention or locomotive is intended to be confined to delivering the empty cars from the entry switches to a point in the rooms adjacent the working faces thereof and returning the loaded cars back to the switches where they may be collected into trains by the gathering locomotives, the work or use of the latterwill be confined to or in the entries where sub st'antial tracks are always laid by competent men, thus avoiding the necessity of heavy locomotives going in the rooms to a point near the working faces over inferior tracks which have been laid by miners.

Tn operating the gathering locomotives in use at the present time, considerable costly delays are caused by derailment of the same, and, due to their great weight, it is necesof eflicient mechanical coal loaders.

lifted back on the track by one man with the aid of a crowbar.

In any event, the transportation of pit or coal cars to and from the mine rooms entails a great amount of labor and expense and is at present so slowly accomplished that the same is a chief and great cause of prevention of further increased'coal production made possible by the invention This fact can be appreciated when it. is known that these loading machines or mechanical loaders must be and are often stopped from operation while waiting for a filled car to be moved out of the room and another empty car brought in to be loaded.

It is, therefore, the primary object of the present invention to provide an improved method of and means for transporting cars in mines so as to permit and enable the transportation to be more expeditiously and cheaply carried on and thereby open the way for increased coal production and greatly reduced loss of time and labor.

A further object of the invention is to provide a, small mine locomotive of extremely light weight and capable of being cheaply manufactured to include means for quickly supporting a portion of the weight of a filled pit car thereon whereby suflicient tractive effort 'is obtained to enable the light weight locomotive to be practically used in transporting or towing filled cars from mine rooms.

Another object of the invention is to provide a relatively small, light and cheap locomotive that may be advantageously employed either in high or low-vein mines to tow filled pit cars from. the rooms where space is extremely limited even under most favorable mining conditions.

. A still further object of the invention is to provide a self-propelled towing vehicle having a hoisting means associated therewith whereby a car may be raised so that a portion of its weight is supported on the vehicle to obtain sufficient tractive efiort for the latter.

Another object of the invention is to provide a self-propelled towing vehicle having a drawbar for connection to the car to be towed, and means for raising said drawbar whereby a portion of the weight of the car is supported thereon to obtain sufiicient tractive effort for the towing vehicle.

Still another object is to provide a mine room locomotive having improved automatic means to take up slack in the electric cable, which supplies current from the entry conductor to the motor of the locomotive, as the locomotive'moves out of the room to the entry.

A still further object of the invention is to provide the locomotive with safetytakeup means for the cable whereby such undue strain is prevented from being placed upon the cable as would cause disconnection of the latter from the entry conductor or other detrimental results.

Other objects and features will appear from a detailed description of the invention, which consists in the novel method and in the construction, combination and ar-' rangement of parts'hereinafter described and claimed. v

In the accompanying drawings, wherein like reference characters indicate similar parts throughout the several views;

Figure 1 is a diagrammatic plan view of a portion of a mine with the locomotive of the present invention coupled to a,pit car within a mine room and the cable extending from the locomotive to the entry conductor;

Figure 2 is a side elevational view ofthe locomotive and a pit car before the latter has been lifted by the drawbar;

Figure 3 is a view similar to Figure 2 with the pit car lifted and supported by the drawbar;

Figure 4 is an enlarged top plan view of the locomotive;

Figure 5 is an enlarged side elevational view thereof;

Figure 6 is a rear endview thereof with parts removed;

Figure 7 is an enlarged View, partly in section and partly in elevation, illustrating details of the locomotive;

Figure 8 is a transverse sectional view taken substantially on line VIII-VIII of Figure 4, and

Figure 9 is a view showing a modified detail of the locomotive.

In Figure 1 there is shown a portion of a mine, the main entry 5 of which has the usual track or rails 6 laid therein and leading from the switch 6 as at 7 into the room 8 having the working face 9 from which the coal is broken down onto the floor. As shown in this figure, the coal or pit car 10 is positioned at about the point which it assumes while being loaded by a mechanical loader, not shown, and when this car has been filled, the same must be brought from the room out into the entry 5 in order that another empty car may be brought in to be loaded, it being noted that laying of double tracks in the mines is not possible for various good reasons and a filled car must therefore be gotten out of the way before another empty one can be brought into place.

The present locomotive, being designed to operate in restricted space to quickly tow these empt and filled pit cars to and from the rooms, lias a body which consists in a flat horizontal platform 11 supported on and suitably secured to the horizontal flanges 12 of the angle bar side rails 13 and the horizontal flange 14 of the outwardly curved transverse angle bar front rail 15. A pair of alined journal boxes or bearing brackets- 16 are secured upon the platform 11 adj acent the side rails 13 at the forward end of the body and an axle 17 extends transversely across said platform with its ends extending freely through and beyond the brackets driving motor 21. The motor 21 is preferably supported above the platform 11 by plate 23 thereon and through which the axle 17 is journaled as at 24 (see Fig. 8).

A pair of alined brackets 25 are secured upon the platform 11 adjacent the side rails v a pair of spaced brackets 22 having a base 13 at the rear end of the body and these brackets rigidly support stub axles upon which are journaled the rear traction or flanged supporting wheels 27. Sprocket wheels 28 are suitabl fastened to the traction wheels 27 and ournaled on Elie-stub axles 26 and endless sprocket chains 29 pass around the same and around the sprocket wheels 30 which are fastened upon the axle 17. It will thus be seen that, when the motor 21 is thrown into operation, rotation will be imparted to axle 17 and wheels 18 through gears 19 and 20, and through sprocket wheels 28 and 30 and chains 29*to wheels 27 so that all four traction wheels are driven.

As shown in Figure 9, the rear axle may be made in one piece having the general form of a crank to give the body an underslung mounting whereby an extremely low locomotive is provided. In this figure, the stub axles 26 project laterally from the upper ends of the upright portions 31 which engage the .outer faces of side rails 13 and which are connected at their lower ends by the portion 32 which extends transversely beneath the platform 11.

A bevel gear 33 is secured upon the axle 17 (see Fig. 8) and meshes with a similar gear 34 which is secured upon the lower end of an upright shaft 35 journaled in the journal box 36 preferably rigidly carried by the meshes upper face of gear and a heavy metallic drum 44 is rotatably mounted on t e spindle 41 with its under side s urface contacting the upper face of the disk 43. The electric cable 45 hasone wire grounded to the frame of the machine, as at 46, while the other wire 47 thereof is connected to a ring 48 which is of copper or the like and fastened to the upper side of drum'44, the ring 48 being insulated from said drum by a ring 49 of some nonconducting material. Suitable connected brushes 50 collect the current from ring 48 at all times and the same are supported by the member 51 which is fastened to spindle 41. The wire 52 carries the current from the brushes 50 to the motor 21 and to controller 53 which is suitably mounted upon the platform 11 at one side of said motor. The manner of wirin whereby the controller 53 may be manipulated to govern the operation of motor 21 does not form a part of the present invention and as any skilled electrician is capable of constructing the same, said wirin is not shown. From the foregoing, it Wlll be apparent that when the axle 17 is rotated toward the right inFigure 5 to cause forward movement of the machine, shaft 35 will be'rotated in a direction whereby pawls 39 cause rotation of gear 37, thus causin rotation of gear 40 and drum 44 so that ca le 45 will be wound upon said drum as the machine moves out of the room 8 (see Fig. 1) toward the point of detachable conmotion of the cable 45 with the entry conductor or trolley wire 54. Also, it will be seen that, should the cable 45 be wound on drum 44 sofast as to place a slight strain upon said cable, the drum will slip relative to gear 40 so as to prevent, such undue strain as would cause 7 disconnection of the cable from the wire 54. On the other hand, when the machine is backed into the mine room, the shaft 35 is rotated so that the pawls 39 slip over the teeth 38 without imparting rotation to the gears 37 and 40 and drum 44, and the drum 44 is substantially free to r0 tate relative to gear 40 so as to pay the cable out as the machine advances into the room. Thus, an eflicient means is rovided toobtain current for the propelling motor from the entry conductor without leaving the cable in the way of the machine, etc., when the machine moves out of the room.

A seat 55 may be provided for the operator or motorman near the controller 53 and steps 56 may also be fastened to the side rails 13 for the convenience of the operator.

As the foregoing construction provides an extremely light locomotive not necessitating the use of a strongor large and heavy propelling motor, some means are desirable and needed to increase the traction ortractive effort of the machine. This traction I obtain in a simple, cheap and efiicient way by providing means to practically make use of a portion of the weight ofthe coal car to canse increased friction between the supadapted to extend up into the hole which is now provided in the bumper 60 to receive the coupling pin 61 of the coal cars. In order to insure the quick alinement of the lug 59 with the hole in the bumper, I provide means for horizontally swinging the drawbar 57 which means includes drums 62 fas-v tened upon the lower end portions of the upright rotatable shafts 63 arranged at opposite side of the drawbar. The drums 62, which are rotated by hand wheels 64 have cables 65 wound thereon and said cables have their free ends attached as at 66 to the drawbar 57, whereby, upon rotation of one of the drums 62, the drawbar will be swung in one direction, and upon rotation of the other drum, the same will be swung in the opposite direction. A foot actuated pawl and ratchet means 67 may be provided to retain the drums against rotation and thereby maintain the drawbar adjusted when desired.

Mounted for movement transversely of the body upon the platform 11, is a small wheeled truck 68 which includes a member having a vertical elongated guide slot 69 therein (see Fig. 6) through which the drawbar can vertically movei. A screw 70 is threaded through said truck member and has a hand wheel 71 on the upper end thereof for turning the same, while the lower end of said screw is connected by a universal joint 72 to a'verti'cal member 73 which is swivelly secured to the drawbar 57. It will thus be seen that when the locomotive is backed into the mine room until the drawbar 57 is positioned wit-h its lug 59 beneath the aperture in the bumper 60 of the coal or pit car, the screw'7O may be rotated to lift said drawbar so as to move said lug 59 into said aperture, after which further upward movement of the drawbar will cause the pit car to be tilted upwardly so as to move the front wheels of the same ofi' the rails 6 as shown in Fig. 3, at which time part of the weight of the car and its contents is supported upon the locomotive to increase the traction ortractive effort of the latter sufficiently to insure against slippage of the supportin wheels 18 and 27 upon the rails when the filled car is hauled or towed out of the mine room.

A coupling bracket 74 is attached tothe front rail 15, while a suitable! headlight 75 is mounted upon the, forward portion of the locomotive to give the necessary light when in the dark mine.'

The foregoing construction makes the forward end of the locomotive carrying the driving motor much heavier than .the 1 'ear end thereof upon which the car rests, thus making the locomotive substantially balanced after the weight of the car has been added.

With the larger and heavier locomotives, it is necessary to employ two men in order that coupling and uncoupling may be readily made at both ends of the locomotive, while with my construction, it is possible for the one operator of the locomotive to reach either end for this purpose while seated.

All of the wheels 64 and 71 and the controller 51am within convenient reach of the operator so that little time and trouble is necessary to operate the several devices, and it is noted that the operation of tilting the pit' car canbe easily accomplished long before the car has become fully loaded.

Thus, onephase of the method involved in the present invention, is that of obtaini sufficient tractive effort for a light, sm and comparatively ine-ipensive locomotive by'supporting a portion of the weight of the 'pit car being towed upon said locomotive, it

being of inestimable value to construct the locomotive small, light and cheaply, both because of restricted space available in which to work and because of the financial gain involved.

By means of the present method and locomotive, uniform results can always be obtained with a minimum amount of labor.

This invention does away withthe old slow and tedious method and removes the necespracticability. of the old slow method; V V

It is "believed that the construction, operation andmerit of the invention will be read ily appreciated and understood from the foregoing description by those skilled in the inclu sity of haste and'overwork on the part, of v the miner-due to the art, and it is noted that as there may be various modifications of the invention herein shown and described, it is my intention to cover all changes which do not involve a departure from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in' the appended claims What I claim as new is 1. A mine locomotive for towing pit cars includin a wheeled body having a drawbar connects/5i thereto for horizontal swinging and-vertical movements, means to horizontall swing said drawbar, and means to vertical ly move said draw-bar to raise and support a pit car in tilted position.

2. A. mine locomotive for towing pit cars including a wheeled body having a platform, a drawbar pivoted to said platform for horizontal and vertical swinging movements, a wheeled truck mounted for movement upon and transversely of said platform, and hoisting means associated with said truck to vertical] move said drawbar and raise a pit car to ti ted position with a portion of the Eveight'thereof supported by said body platorm. I

' 3. A mine locomotive for towing pit'cars including a wheeled body having a platform, a drawbar pivoted to said platform for horizontal and vertical movements and having a lug on the free end thereof for reception within the 'hole of a) pit car bumper, a wheeled truck mounted for movement upon and transversely of said platform, and a move said drawbar and raise a pit car to tilted position with a portion of theweight thereo supported by said body platform.

4. A mine locomotive for towing pit cars a wheeled bod having a draw bar connect thereto for 'orizontal swinging and vertical movements, and means to vertically move said draw bar to raise and support a pit car in tilted position.

In testimonywhereof I afiix my signature.

JOSEPH F. JoY.

screw associated with said truck to vertically 

